Cal Football News and Updates

Jason A.W.’s Pac-12 Predictions: Week 2

Meh. I hate to say “I told you so” on Oregon, but that was sure a disappointment. Needless to say the Oregon State loss came out of nowhere. Hopefully the Pac-12 can steal one of the marquee games in which they are underdogs (@Oklahoma State, @Wisconsin) and hold serve on all the other non conference to make up for a disappointing week one.

I’m predicting the Pac-12 to go 6-2 non-conference this week.

Arizona 28 – Oklahoma State (Big-12) 41: I expect the Wildcats to be fairly competitive. Nick Foles->Juron Criner has to ability to match Brandon Weeden->Justin Blackmon, but the Pokes have too much on offense and I haven’t seen enough improvement on the defensive side for the Cats since the Alamo Bowl beatdown to change my mind on this game.

Missouri(Big-12) 21 – Arizona State 29: A must win for the Pac-12. The highly touted Sun Devil’s defense will be tested against Mizzou. Brock Osweiler will need to move the ball effectively against an underrated Tiger defense.

Oregon State 14 – Wisconsin(Big-10) 42: If it wasn’t for last week’s debacle, I might have tempted to pick this game as the upset which gets the Beavers out of their usual September hibernation. Ryan Katz is iffy to start and Russell Wilson looked very good against UNLV on prime time TV as Wisconsin looks to entrench themselves as the top dog in the inaugural twelve team Big-10.

Stanford 52 – Duke(ACC) 13: Stanford rolls easily and avenges their last trip to North Carolina two years ago (17-24 loss to Wake Forest) which likely costed Toby Gerhart the Heisman.

Hawaii(WAC) 20 – Washington 28: Hawaii doesn’t play as well off the islands, but Washington needs to play better on defense than they did on Eastern Washington or this could turn into another WAC>Pac-12 upset.

Nevada 21(WAC) – Oregon 58 : Oregon recovers from their week 1 defeat and run over the Wolfpack. Running the spread offense against Nevada is going to feel like a hot knife through butter compared to LSU’s defense.

UNLV(Mountain West) 24 – Washington St 27: Jeff Tuel is out, but luckily Wazzou has a replacement in 5th year starter Marshall Lobbestael who does have a victory against SMU under his belt.

Utah 21 – USC 31: Matt Barkley and the passing game wakes up as the Trojans usher the Ute’s maiden game rudely. Marc Tyler’s return should help the University of Sexual Ballers balance on offense.

San Jose State(WAC) 16 – UCLA 37: Rick Neuheisel cools the hotseat for at least one week. UCLA’s pistol offense didn’t look that bad last week when it was run by backup Richard Brehaut but the defense should be able to step up this week against a weaker opponent.

California 27 – Colorado 23: Last year’s 52-7 beatdown isn’t reflective of Colorado’s talent. Keep in mind they beat Hawaii and Georgia last year out of conference. Cal needs a better performance from the running game and special teams if it wants to sweep the series against the Buffaloes.